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Gregory Friedberg
Gregory Friedberg is the Founder and former President/Host of Survivor: Time & Change at The Ohio State University. Questions or inquiries about the Survivor: Time & Change concept can be forwarded to friedberg.19@osu.edu or SurvivorTimeChangeOSU@gmail.com. Survey Answers Name: '''Gregory Friedberg '''Major(s): '''Neuroscience '''Minor(s): '''N/A '''Hometown: '''Solon, Ohio '''Birthday: '''March 15, 1996 '''What Are Your Major Campus Involvements? My most meaningful involvements on campus beyond Survivor: Time & Change include my fraternity (Phi Gamma Delta) and my on-campus fitness community (GRIND). Additionally, I work at the campus recreation center and spent a lot of time engaging in undergraduate research prior to STC as well. I also served as a University Orientation Leader and member of the 2017 Ohio State Homecoming Court! What Are Three Words To Describe You? Passionate, emotional, self-aware. What Are Your Favorite Hobbies? Watching Survivor of course! Also very into video editing, working out, listening to TED talks/podcasts, perusing Spoitify to find new aspiring artists and answering surveys about myself. What Are You Most Passionate About? One of my most significant passions, especially in college, has been prioritizing health/wellness (both physically and mentally). I also love to invest my time in making meaningful friendships and connections - enabling myself and others to practice vulnerability to help foster community. Lastly, focusing on personal and leadership development in most everything I do has also been something very important to me. What Are Three Of Your Pet Peeves? Flaky people - when you make a (non-Survivor related) promise, I will incessantly hold you to it and if you break it I’ll lose my shit, cleaning other people’s dishes/messes - if you’ve ever lived with roommates that don’t clean up after themselves, this one speaks for itself, simultaneously opening my Snapchats & ignoring my texts - this drives me absolutely insane, at least make it a little less obvious that you’re ignoring me, okay thanks. What Is Your Personal Claim to Fame? I’ll save the bad jokes about starting STC or having a great Jeff Probst impersonation. I’d say one of my greatest claims to fame would be that I was born and raised as a very passionate Michigan fan and yet somehow managed to come here and make Ohio State my home. Do You Have Any Hidden/Special Talents? I can make this really loud clicking noise with my tongue. It’s pretty cool but also gets really annoying really quickly for most people. I can also tumble (back flips, handsprings, etc) and have always been relatively decent at singing because of my family’s interest in musical theatre and whatnot (although my dancing is horrendous - don’t ever ask to see it). Name Three Items On Your Bucket List Running an Ironman Triathalon - always has and will be one of my most lofty fitness goals, hoping to complete it by the time I’m 30 years old, attend Wimbledon/French Open - for some reason I have had this weird interest in watching tennis despite never actually playing, love the atmosphere of these tournaments and think it would be incredible to be there in person, see a concert @ The Red Rocks Amphitheatre - one of the coolest and most unique venues in the entire world, a couple bands I would love to see perform there include Mumford & Sons, The Dave Matthews Band and O.A.R. Who Is Your Inspiration In Life? No surprise here: Jeff Probst. The man gets paid to do what he loves - travels the world, meets all sorts of unique people/personalities along the way and facilitates the greatest social experiment ever created. I’ll also throw in a shout-out to some other honorable mention inspirations in my life: President Michael Drake (see next question), Dr. James Andrews (sports medicine guru), Ethan Zohn (Survivor S3 winner, cancer survivor and major philanthropist). What Is Your Dream Job? University President - would like to first establish myself in the medical field and practice as a physician, but then eventually work my way into academia and university administration positions at a major public university (but until then - being either a team physician for a major college football program or professional sports team would be incredible - or maybe even the medical director for Survivor ''@DrJoe). '''If You Could Live Anywhere In The World, Where Would It Be?' If I was choosing somewhere here in the United States it would be Raleigh, North Carolina. Anywhere in the world? Australia would be amazing and adventurous so let’s go with that. Anywhere but Cleveland! Survivor Contestant You Are Most Like? Spencer Bledsoe (Version 2 - Second Chances) - someone who believes themselves to be very calculated and strategic but is really just extremely emotionally-charged and tends to be an over-thinker in most scenarios - also someone who was moderately threatening throughout the season, fairly adaptable, surprisingly self-aware, prioritized relationships and just in general loved the experience of being able to play Survivor more than anything in the world. Reason For Joining Survivor: Time & Change? I guess I’ll phrase this as to why I founded STC. I wanted to do something unconventional that appealed to one of my wackiest passions. People always knew me as a Survivor fanatic and at first I just wanted to start a fan club so I had people to watch the real show with every week, but after coming across Survivor: Maryland on Reddit, I knew this was what I wanted to do. The way I saw it, we were Ohio State: one of the greatest public institutions in the country and had all the resources to make something like this happen - and make it great. I wanted to enable students to engage in something different and outlandish - that brought together this love I had for competition and relationship development. I wanted to find people on-campus that we’re just as crazed about this idea as me. I wanted to inspire people to get out of their comfort zones and to do something that (for once) was not tailored towards improving a resume but was done purely out of love and for fun. I wanted to leave a legacy at Ohio State - I wanted to be Probst. Best Part Of Being Behind-The-Scenes? Being a fly on the wall is so much fun - being able to analyze everyone’s strategies and motivations has been really entertaining. However, more than anything, the best part of being behind the scenes has been creating an authentic Survivor experience that for many people has come to shape their Ohio State undergraduate careers in ways you would have never expected. People have found their home here in STC - myself included - and the best part of being behind the scenes has been watching this community come together over a love for this crazy game and becoming best friends. These people have become some of the most important people in my life and for that I am forever grateful. Anything else cool you'd like to share? It’s been an amazing ride. Words cannot do justice to what this organization means to me. Thank you to all of you for giving me something that makes saying goodbye so hard. Keep the tradition going strong once I leave! Cheers to STC!